melted smoosh

Sunday, August 26, was a bizarre day to be in Rome. late the night before, we read Archbishop Viganò's statement alleging more scandal and cover-ups in the abuse crisis, naming several cardinals and Pope Francis himself. the ensuing maelstrom has included plenty of attempts to discredit Viganò, but also corroboration from several good bishops. in that first twenty-four hours, we had the same sense of shocked clarity one has when complaining to a doctor that something feels off, and receiving a diagnosis of cancer. attending mass at St. Peter's Basilica in this context was even more emotionally powerful than i imagine it would have been otherwise. we set off around 9:45 to get to 10:30 mass (the same mass we tried to go to on our first Sunday here -- this time, the schedule proceeded as normal!). however, the wait to get through security was 30 minutes instead of the 15 we had budgeted, so we were in a bit of a rush as we finally cleared security, dropped off the stroller at th

the first-year seminarians went away on retreat this weekend, so Nick had Saturday completely free and we decided to make the most of it with a trip to see the ancient ruins of the port town of Ostia Antica. once again, we ran into difficulties with the bus system. there's supposed to be a bus that runs directly to the metro station at Piramide where we would catch the commuter train to Ostia Antica, but we got tired of waiting and hopped on a 64 bus to Termini (the central bus/train station). the 64 bus is notoriously crowded and full of tourists and pickpockets, as it travels between most of the main sights of the city, but Greta was lucky enough to get a seat and we were off for the twenty-five minute ride to Termini. immediately upon getting settled, Nick went to validate our ticket at the machine at the rear of the bus, but it wasn't accepting tickets. i had just seen another woman try unsuccessfully to validate her ticket in the machine at the front of the bus, so i told